


Done, Drained, And Empty

by Lothiriel84



Series: Signs [1]
Category: The Bunker (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Fix-It of Sorts, Friends With Benefits, Gen, M/M, The Author Regrets Everything, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-04
Updated: 2017-04-04
Packaged: 2018-10-14 20:35:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10543956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lothiriel84/pseuds/Lothiriel84
Summary: You know it's good to be protecting your bones.





	

Tom had just saved them all, and he was quite likely high on caffeine on top of that. He counted slowly up to seventy-five before extricating himself from the manic grip of his arms, eventually decided against making a cutting remark about how they’d all long agreed there was no place for physical affection inside the bunker.

(Tom would probably object that he’d never agreed on that in the first place, and he was too drained to argue the point. He vaguely wondered just how many cups of coffee it would take to kill an adult human male, and felt his fingers twitching, the distant craving for a cigarette. He’d smoked his last one half a century ago, and he’d been regretting his weakness ever since.)

“David and I are just going to lie down for a bit,” Dave announced, trying for casual, and missing it by a mile. “You just stay here, and wait for all that caffeine to wear off.”

“Righto,” Tom nodded, his grin somewhat forced. David refused to meet his gaze, let himself be dragged to Dave’s room.

(He could really use a cigarette right now. Not nicotine patches, those weren’t nearly as good, just good old-fashioned tobacco smoke down his lungs, a hand grenade of cancer waiting to go off.)

“You’re doing it again,” Dave warned, his tone between fond and exasperated. “Just stop.”

“Doing what?” he countered, defensively, nearly jumped when a – slightly cold, and yet much warmer than he felt inside – hand made contact with his neck. “And what are you still doing here anyway? Shouldn’t you be with your – Katie, or whatever?”

“Shut up,” Dave told him firmly, their breaths mingling in the stillness of the room. This was bad, really bad, it was against every rule he’d specifically coded for their survival, and his own sanity on top of that.

(He thought of Gertrude, lying dead somewhere deep under their feet. The sky was still there, vast and terrifying just outside the door to their bunker, clouds and radiation and Rayleigh scattering turning it to a deceitfully hopeful shade of blue; that was everything she’d ever wanted to see, but she wouldn’t get to do that now, and it was all his fault. Again.)

He stifled a sob, pressed his mouth against scratchy fabric and warm skin. Alive. They were both alive – well, and Tom too, he conceded almost as an afterthought – and yet he felt as cold as death, inside, and empty. Echoey.

“You’re not like me,” he muttered, incoherently. “Thank goodness you’re not,” he breathed, allowing Dave to cut off whatever he was going to say next.

(Mouths pressing, insistent, a growing ache that threatened to eat him from the inside. He should put a stop to this, he knew he had to, but he couldn’t remember how to do it. He tried to summon the sparse, fractured memories he still possessed of his late wife; it was too long ago, he couldn’t even remember her face, and he wished he was dead – as he’d already done countless times.)

Dave deserved to be happy. They all did, even Tom. It was too late for him, he should let them go, let them try and live their lives, or whatever was left of it. Still he clutched onto Dave’s shoulders, let his hands explore for the first time in years – decades – seeking the last few shreds of comfort he was allowed.

“No,” he panted, as Dave reached for the candle that was slowly consuming itself, flickering in the darkness. “Leave it on.”

He all but averted his gaze, fancied he saw Dave smile out of the corner of his eye. Then there was warmth, and pain, and arms holding him gently when he dissolved into sobs.

( _Pathetic. You’re pathetic, David_ , a voice sneered at him somewhere inside his brain. Then something else, something he didn’t understand, until he slowly drifted to sweet oblivion – sleep, dream, a momentary respite from the unremitting horror and meaninglessness of life.)


End file.
